I'm in the middle of attempting to work on a book, in addition to some other blog posts, so I thought I'd repost this story from my archive, for those that haven't read it. Enjoy! A note about this story. I edited it and added a few new details.
I'm not saying that I'm gullible, but let's just say that if you were to look the word up in the dictionary, you're likely to find a picture of me next to the word.
I think it all started with my brothers and sisters. Being the youngest of 5 kids, my brother and I received the brunt end of all of the mental torture that could be executed onto siblings. My two older brothers, Joe and Paul, and our in the middle sister, Mara, were masters at manipulation. They loved to play on the fears of a little child, much in the way a cat plays with a mouse before eating it.
As a kid, I'd heard and believed them all.
Break a mirror? Seven years bad luck. I had managed to break 4 mirrors by the time I was 9. I figured I was screwed until my mid-twenties with that streak going.
Swallow watermelon seeds? Uh-oh. That means you have watermelon plants growing out of you
Swallow some gum? It'll rot there forever in your stomach.
The most elaborate tale that I heard involved the delivery of my brother Bill and I. This tale haunted me for years, but was retold to me with a gleeful disregard that only carefree older brothers or sisters could muster.
If you were to believe them, my brother and I were the result of a Buy One Get One Free sale.
"Mom and Dad really didn't want two more kids," one would say.
"They were going to the store one day when they saw a Buy One Get One Free sale sign in the window of the store, so they decided to buy Bill. You were the Get One Free."
I kept denying it, but they insisted that it was true. I didn't cry about it, but it did stick with me. And it was repeated over and over.
Not that my brothers and sisters weren't nice to me. Sometimes, they would draw me in when they were playing games. Then, when I had relaxed and gotten to trust them, they'd dare me to say dirty words. I knew that they were bad, but I was dying to get in my older siblings good graces. As a 4-year old, I didn't have much exposure to coolness, but I was willing to try and act cool.
"Bob, say Shit," one would say.
"Why?" I'd ask kind of scared. I knew they shouldn't be saying that, either.
"Just do it. We want to hear you say it."
"No," I'd say slowly and softly. "That's a naughty word. I'll get in trouble."
"Oh, come on!" They'd plead. "We're not going to tell! We just want to hear you say it."
"Please?" someone would ask.
"Oh... OK." I said and kind of gave them some nervous looks in the circle we were sitting in.
"SHit," I said with kind of a toothy lisp.
Instead of looking pleased, my brothers and sister looked shocked. I suddenly froze because I couldn't understand what was going on. I did realize that I was in trouble. Was it the way I said it? The worse was yet to come.
"MOM!!!!!" one would yell. "Bob said the S-word!!!"
My Mom came downstairs in a huff as she usually did (I came to realize as an adult that she was probably so moody because she was sick and tired of our antics) and with a little investigation in which my brothers and sister told the whole story about my saying the S-word. I was dragged off for my punishment. Sometimes a spanking, but usually I got my mouth washed out with soap. Not too pleasant.
Did it stop there? Nope. I fell for it again a few times more. Each time, believing them when they swore up and down that they wouldn’t tell on me this time and each time ended with another mouth washing.
When I was in 4th grade, one of our assignments was to cut out a “news” article out of a “newspaper.” At that age, I had no idea that the National Enquirer wasn’t a reputable newspaper. But hey, it was lying around my house because my Mom bought it, so it had to be true right? Sure, they had articles about aliens, alien abductions and Lorne Greene getting mauled by wild dogs, but I figured if it was in print, it had to be true.
I remember coming to class with an article about aliens being found at Area 51. It was complete with photos and wild illustrations of what the aliens looked like. They were, of course, gray and thin, like any aliens you ever see depicted in the movies. The kids laughed when I was reading from the “news” story. “It’s not funny,” I said very seriously.
This is coming from a kid that used to think that movies were based on real life events (most of them anyway). I had seen a movie once about HG Wells coming to the future to stop Jack the Ripper. So when it was time to dress up as a famous person, I chose HG Wells. I looked him up in the encyclopedias that we had. He was in there and there was a mention of him writing a book called The Time Machine, but no mention of his actual time machine. This HAD to be an oversight. No Time Machine? I added to my short report on the life of HG Wells that shortly after writing The Time Machine, he invented the time machine. That satisfied me.
I grew smarter when it came to my older siblings, however, so I’m not hopelessly gullible.
I was about 13 when my older brother, Paul, asked me to do something for him.
“Put your nose up to this screen door.” He demanded.
“No way,” I of course retorted, “You’re going to hit me.”
I was no fool. After hundreds of senseless beatings at the hands of my brothers, I knew a trap when I saw it.
“If I hit you, I’ll give you $5.” Paul said.
Hey, five dollars was five dollars, so I risked it and put my nose up to the screen on the screen door.
Smack! He punched my nose from the other side of the door.
A short time later, I was five dollars richer. My Mom punished Paul by making him pay me the five dollars. Gullible, but richer.
Even as an adult, I'm prone to falling for some trick that I shouldn't fall for.
In my mid-twenties, I was working at Pizza Hut part time.
I had to go downstairs to the manager's office and make a photo copy of some information for him. Seeing as how we were a little slow and I was a little bored, I thought I'd have some fun. I plastered the side of my face to the copying machine glass and pressed the button. The machine engaged and out came a smiling half-face, stubble-chin mug shot of me.
The light from the copying machine was bright, but I had closed my eyes, so I wasn't worrying.
I brought it up and showed it to another employee. He looked at it and laughed.
"Be careful man. You can go blind from doing that," he said seriously.
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"Yeah. I had a friend of mine do that once and days later he lost his vision. It was pretty scary."
My heart fluttered a bit, but then I tried to be rational by saying, "Well, I closed my eyes when I did that, so I think I'm safe."
The guy didn't skip a beat.
"That's what he said, but he went blind anyway."
He must have noticed the shock on my face because I was suddenly getting worried that I was going blind. Indeed, the light was bright from the copying machine. Also, my eyes were still adjusting to the not-so-bright light upstairs so I was seeing that tracer effect that one sees when exposed to bright lights.
He started laughing. "Dude, I'm just messing with you! My friend didn't go blind."
I laughed and said, "Don't do that to me! You're talking to a very gullible guy!"
But I'm not so gullible that I fall for things like chain letters, pyramid schemes and internet scams. At least, I hope it stays that way. When I retire, I probably have a better than the average chance of being one of those guys that gets scammed.
I'll be on the news going, "Well, I got an email from this man in Africa that said that he was in the process of inheriting 18 million dollars and I could have half of it if I only gave him my bank account routing number, my 401k portfolio, my car's pink slip and the deed to my house. I thought it sounded a little fishy seeing as how I never gave this man my email address and didn't even talk to him, but it sounded legitimate."
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